Improving performance

I've recently started playing, I have a desktop and a lappy. The desktop runs WoT fine, but I'm trying to find if there's any tricks etc. I can do to get the FPS up on my laptop. During normal play it's fine, the main performance hit is when I'm in manual target mode and I either fire, or someone else hits me as either way I get smoke blowing across the screen and AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHH NO FPS!!

I found a fix on the US site that suggested renaming the skyboxes and explosion files in the /res/ folder to take them out, but when I tried that the maps failed to load (I just had an endless loading screen).

So... Does anyone know a) how to get the above fix working, b ) a mod that could do the same, or c) any other little tricks to get the FPS up?

However that thread is awfully old and some of the files seem to be unsafe to muck around with.
ALWAYS BACK STUFF UP (just to be extra safe i state the obvious).
In general reading the guides section might be helpful to you in that regard.

Reading the patchnotes hints at the upcoming patch having some of the desired options, though why they are added that late is a mystery for me.

First of all you need to update the driver for your graphiccard to the latest version.
Second, try to play the game at the lowest resolution possible.
If this doesn't help, your laptop (graphiccard) is just not good enough for this game.